The Western Isles’ e-Sgoil (e-School) has been a shining light during the Covid crisis. Years of honing expertise with online learning in rural communities - long before anyone had ever heard of Covid-19 - saw educators and pupils in some of Scotland’s remotest schools better equipped than many for pandemic-enforced restrictions. So much so that, as the coronavirus surged through the country, the e-Sgoil was called upon to support thousands of students and teachers across the country.

It is one of the many educational silver linings to a huge Covid cloud that has seemed to loom larger than ever this month, given the huge strain put on schools with the announcement that all pupils would be back for at least some face-to-face learning from next week (see pages 8-9).

The pressure put on schools by that announcement was clear in a piece by an anonymous secondary school leader, which became one of our most-read pieces of 2021 so far. Writing on the day of the announcement, they said that suddenly being asked to create a model that allowed all pupils to return for at least some of the week - at 13 days’ notice - was the “worst-case scenario”, creating workload of “nonsensical” levels just to give S1-3s a tantalisingly brief taste of being in school again.

It can be hard to see positives through the fog of frequently changing guidelines, which, quite rightly, are at the forefront of teachers’ minds right now. But once we’re all through the other side of the pandemic, we may see that this period has not just been about damage limitation in education, but also innovation. We should not, of course, play down the damage that Covid has wreaked on education, the extent of which it is just too early to gauge. But neither should we unthinkingly trot out narratives of “lost learning”.

Schools reopening: Teachers can come out of the Covid crisis stronger

That, certainly, is what 50 S3 modern studies students at Rosshall Academy in Glasgow said when - as we reported last weekend - they were asked what they thought about the whole idea of “catching up”. They pointed out that, for all the many problems Covid has created, in some ways they have gained. They highlighted, for example, the online and digital skills acquired during remote learning, as well as “life skills like how to organise our day and motivate ourselves”, as one student put it.

Back at the e-Sgoil, now considered a paragon of online learning both in Scotland and internationally, there is a broader success story. As headteacher Angus Maclennan explains in our interview with him this week, the e-Sgoil has, crucially, created flexible jobs in the Western Isles and other rural areas of Scotland. In places dominated for more years than anyone cares to remember by narratives of depopulation and decline of the Gaelic language, the e-Sgoil is a story of reinvention and regeneration.

Not only that but, as Maclennan says, “by far the most satisfying aspect of the job” is getting emails from parents and teachers of pupils with additional support needs - some of whom have been out of formal school up to two years - enthusing about their children making progress “in leaps and bounds”.

In short, there’s no getting away from the doom and gloom just now - it’s pretty intrinsic to a pandemic - but Scottish education already has much to build on. And periods of epochal crisis are often followed by explosions of ideas and creativity, by a fresh sense of possibility and a greater clarity about what matters and what was only there because it’s “aye been”.

Those who work and learn in Scottish education are under pressure like never before - but they could come out the other side of this crisis stronger than ever.

@Henry_Hepburn

This article originally appeared in the 12 March 2021 issue under the headline “Be sure to look out for the silver linings in the coronavirus clouds”